Recently I was asked to consult on a new leadership program for high school girls, funded by a wealthy businesswoman. The program was designed to help girls discover their “inner compass,” learn to take personal responsibility for their actions, develop networking skills and social media manners, and enter the world with “grit” and “a personal brand.” The businesswoman’s story, experiences, and successes would anchor a series of daylong training sessions and other successful women would model key concepts and offer information to the girls. (more…)

Recently I had the opportunity to speak at Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine. Before the lecture I spent an hour walking around their beautiful campus, thinking about how to frame my discussion about equality, harassment and my family without getting too emotional. I was concerned that breaking into tears might distract from my message, which acknowledges that we have indeed come far these past five years, but further stresses that there is still a great deal of work to be done.

I am the proud father of identical twins: one is a boy and one is a girl. My beautiful daughter Nicole is transgender. This talk was important to me, a chance to meet with senior staff, middle management and students and have a conversation about transgender rights in schools. (more…)

The Life You Can Save will challenge your students to think about what they should be doing about one of the great issues of our times. For the first time in history, it is now within our reach to virtually eradicate world poverty and the suffering it brings. Yet around the world, a billion people struggle to live each day on less than many of us your students too—pay for bottled water that we don’t even need. And though the number of deaths attributable to poverty worldwide has fallen dramatically in the past half-century, nearly nine million children still die unnecessarily each year. We in the developed world face a profound choice: if we are not to turn our backs on a fifth of the world’s population, we must become part of the solution. (more…)